Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumHe’s Not Moving A Party to the Left – He's Moving A Generation to the Left
MOVING A GENERATION TO THE LEFT
The Sanders campaign did not emerge from nowhere. All movements exist within wider microsystems of struggle, and the complex entanglement and overlapping of recent social movements made his campaign possible. Without Occupy, Black Lives Matter, the Fight for $15, the mobilization of teachers and nurses, immigrant movements, and many other struggles, there would never have been a Sanders campaign. Sanders has benefited enormously from the hard work of these earlier struggles. He has tapped into existing networks to raise an army of volunteers. He has, for better or worse, adopted much of the political language of these other movements. No one in these movements foresaw Bernies spectacular rise, but they all prepared it.
While Sanders has in some ways channeled these movements, he has not facilitated their recuperation, as many socialists originally feared. Instead of defusing and containing radical ideas, his campaign has helped proliferate them. Radical activists, many of whom often appeared antagonistic to both his campaign and the entire electoral process, not only pushed Sanders to the left, but forced him to use his candidacy as a tribune to popularize and combine many pre-existing, seemingly separate demands: a $15 minimum wage, an end to mass incarceration, universal healthcare, free education, de-criminalizing marijuana, legalizing thousands of immigrants, and banning fracking, to name only a few.
These pressures also led Sanders to issue a whole spate of political statements that no presidential candidate would dare to utter in the United States. He publicly denounced the history of American imperialism on national television. He advocated for the rights of Palestinians in a country where almost no one in public office would even use the word Palestine. Like the Black Panthers, he has called the police an occupying army.
All that said, in proliferating the messages of radical movements, even if articulating them in a social-democratic framework, his campaign has had an undeniable impact on millions of Americans, above all young Americans, who were unfamiliar with such ideas, too afraid to embrace them, or had dismissed them as impossible. A recent Harvard poll showed that young peoples political attitudes have already changed considerably just over the past year, and the polling director, John Della Volpe, has pinpointed Sanders as one of the primary causes. Hes not moving a party to the left, he concluded, hes moving a generation to the left.
In addition, Sanders has helped draw lines of demarcation. Although most of his usual targets, such as billionaires or Wall Street, remain either terribly obvious or hopelessly vague, he has publicly named the capitalists as an enemy class, identified capitalism as the problem, and advocated political revolution as the solution. He has argued, before millions who are only now beginning to seriously think about things like capitalism, that problems in this society are not personal or isolated, but systemic, and that the only way forward is to radically and collectively overhaul that system.
- See more at: http://www.occupy.com/article/%E2%80%9Che%E2%80%99s-not-moving-party-left-%E2%80%93-hes-moving-generation-left%E2%80%9D?utm_source=Website+%27Join+Us%27&utm_campaign=56c30849bd-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_77fe4a462d-56c30849bd-73724349#sthash.YvA5XFZG.dpuf
patsimp
(915 posts)You're posting in a protected group.
And I'm Bernie for life now. His ways coincide with my own.
TrueDemVA
(250 posts)Bernie represents our values and what this nation can be if we demand it of our representives.
Saying Bernie for life is more than supporting one man, it's believing we can do better. I'm with you...Bernie 4 Life!
retrowire
(10,345 posts)The political revolution was always meant to go beyong his campaign, win or lose.
They ARE NOT getting rid of us.
Duppers
(28,134 posts)BERNIE 4 LIFE !
Yes, indeedy, that fits! Because his values are ours and have been ours before he began this campaign.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)This flame of ours isn't dying out, even when this election is over, we're still fighting.
Just as Eugene Debs was Bernie's hero, Bernie shall forever be ours!
We are Bernie 4 Life and 4 Ever!
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Now go away Hillary bot.
patsimp
(915 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Hillary Bot?
Autumn
(45,120 posts)Response to patsimp (Reply #1)
artislife This message was self-deleted by its author.
Good catch.
TIME TO PANIC
(1,894 posts)LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)Skink
(10,122 posts)dchill
(38,642 posts)It's a planetary thing.
SamKnause
(13,114 posts)He has earned my trust.
He has earned my respect.
He has earned my admiration.
He has sound judgment.
I agree with his policy positions.
He has held the same beliefs for decades.
What a wonderful role model.
The government of the U.S. has failed its citizenry miserably.
Response to Ichingcarpenter (Original post)
artislife This message was self-deleted by its author.
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)Oixi1993
(81 posts)Bernie represents FREEDOM.
This movement represents democracy. It represents logic and reason. It represents fairness and common good. It represents change which is sorely needed. We are never going away. We will never again become assimilated. We are only going to gain steam the more you try to oppress or control us. The manipulation of the establishment is fuel to our fire. I will never back down. I will never relent. I will stand shoulder to shoulder with my progressive friends until we get our country back.
deepestblue
(349 posts)He's bringing some Libertarians, Republicans, Independents and those from many many other groups along for the ride!
...As will be seen this fall WHEN he routs Trump in a complete landslide.
BERNIE!
Oixi1993
(81 posts)I have been here a couple of months. I was a lifelong conservative. 30 plus years. No longer. They have no real solutions at this point for where we are. Their arguments are theoretical. I am no longer into theory or ideology. I am into practical solutions. Bernie and the progressives have them. I am a leader but I also know when to follow. Or should I say join.